Add-ons Meteorites

Add-ons Meteorites

Very bright asteroid + Polaris star

Miniature meteorite crater, fossilized in a Triassic, 200 my. old, sandstone

Impact melt with flow lines

Cosmic dust: nickel iron spherules

G. Keller(2005): impacts, extinctions, eruptions •

Montagnais crater, Nova Scotia

Largest shatter cone on the planet: Slate islands

Cenotes & Chicxulub crater

Image of Chondrites

NEAR at Eros

Eros

4 Vesta

Ceres (Demetra)

2 Pallas

Cosmic dust (infrared)

Tracked asteroid debris collected: 2008 TC3

Regmaglypts

Ephesus and meteorite

Impact breccia

Impact breccia

Coesite (“diamond”)

coesite

Suevite

St. George church, Ries crater

Garchinski meteorite, Ontario

Meteorite hits girl

Haughton crater, Devon island

Devon island

Sudbury shatter cones

Comet McNaught, 2007

Holes 2007

Asteroid hunters • Badlands Observatory, South Dakota

Chicago Meteorite Fall, 2003

Campo del Cielo

Quaoar

Peru meteor falls causes sickness: arsenic fumes from too much arsenic in soil/water in the area

Temple of Aphrodite, Paphos

Paphos

Emesa, Syria

Vrederfot/Sudbury • Oldest & largest crater • Created    by  the  world’s  greatest  known  energy   release may have altered the evolution of single-cell organisms Sudbury • Heat from the impact & cometary water fed a system of hot springs possibly capable of supporting  life.  Rim  has  world’s  largest  supply   of Ni, Cu

Barringer Crater • • • • • • •

First impact crater ever identified on Earth Best preserved 1.2 km across 150 m deep Meteor 20 m big fell at 12 km/sec 2.5 Megatons Meteorites scattered to a distance of 10 km

Chesapeake Crater • Fractured bedrock more than a mile deep • Has created a saltwater reservoir that still affects  the  region’s  groundwater

3D of Barringer

Springwater Pallasite: Canada’s  largest  pallasite

1997 impact on Greenland

Carolina Bays

Sikhote Alin

Dino killer starts its journey

Chain of craters

Crater chains

Sudbury

Sahara

1833 shower

Canadian craters

Tunguska tree falls

Iron spherules

Tunguska • 60m wide comet? • 40 km wide patch of forest laid waste

Fossil meteorites (only 101 known)

Most craters • Must be created by IRON meteorites • Iron is a tough material • Iron meteors are most likely to survive the fall to Earth • Sonic boom: sign that it has survived at low altitude

Crater size v. density • A 100m wide metal meteor will create a blast area 60 km across • A 100m wide stone meteor will create just a 2 km blast area • A 50-100m comet is weak & dangerous. It breaks up into fragments which explode just a few km above the ground: optimum altitude for max devastation (shock wave + thermal flash)

Supernova eruptions • 1054 AD: in Crab nebula • Most recent: Febr. 24, 1987 in large Magellanic Cloud • Luminous X-Ray outburst in the spiral galaxy NGC2770

Sheriden cave, Ohio • 13,000 years old black mat with micrometeorites and mini diamonds • Remains of mega animals that perished • A comet hit?